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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POWERCLOUD (Cloud Energy management solution for Office It equipment and Smart devices)

Teaser

Summary

The problem - Organizations today are not managing their entire electricity consumption and, in specific, not managing their plug and process load (PPL). Plug and Process Load is defined as the power consumption of all the devices that are connected to power plugs (and essentially to the walls).
Not only that organizations are not managing this important aspect of their operation, they are lacking information regarding PPL - which devices are connected, how much power they consume, when they consume it and in what usage scenarios; and they are lacking the tools that will help them to analyze this consumption and enforce policies to save power when possible.
This situation leads to the fact that organizations consume and waste unneeded energy, waste money and resources and, essentially, since power generation\'s side effect is pollution - cause the emission of excessive CO2 to our fragile atmosphere.

One of the biggest challenges that the human race face today is the global warming that is caused by pollution and CO2 emission. While there is work being done on generating energy from cleaner sources (solar, wind, etc\'), it is clear that reducing the overall power consumption will greatly help our planet in reducing the pollution and CO2 emission. Since reducing power consumption also means economical benefit to organizations that achieve this goal - this is a win - win situation for all parties involved - and to our society in general.

PowerCloud project main objective is to create a software as a service platform that will enable organizations of all sizes to monitor their PPL, understand their power consumption and enforce policies that will help them save power and reduce their overall carbon footprint.

Work performed

\"The project started on August 1st, 2015. The first task was to upgrade PowerPlug\'s existing PC power management software - \"\"PowerPlug Pro\"\", to a cloud based architecture that will enable multi-tenant, lower the requirements of using the system and enable more customers to do PC Power Management.
In addition, PowerPlug started to develop a unique hardware device, the PC Power Monitor, that monitors the actual power consumption of the computer it is connected to, and automatically calibrate the system with real-life consumption data that will result in a more accurate reporting and higher system reliability.
Both tasks were completed during the 1st period: PowerCloud 1.0 was installed on a hosted server and tested by PowerPlug\'s QA team, and the PC Power Monitor hardware device was designed, developed and a prototype was successfully produced.
Towards the 2nd period, PowerPlug started the pilot program for PowerCloud by preparing an end-user agreement and a pilot test program for customers that will evaluate the system. PowerPlug contacted several potential organizations that showed interest in testing the system and identified 2 pilot customers.
Two changes were made to the project during the first period:
1. moving the PowerPlug Access Point development from the 1st period to the 2nd period. This was necessary as we did not have the bandwidth to do 2 hardware projects along with the software development.
2. Remove support for OpenADR and two deliverables (D1.5 and D3.5). The reason for the removal was due to lack of adaption of the OpenADR protocol by any utility company across the European Union. The project officer approved both modifications.
The expert assessment recommended that the work hours that should have been done on OpenADR integration will be directed to the pilot program (WP3). The recommendation was taken into account and PowerPlug tried to identify and execute a third pilot program but could not complete the task in time to be included in the final reporting. The third pilot (Hospital in Israel) did start on October 2017 but was not included it in the report (as it started after 30/09/17). In addition to the work that was added for WP3, some additional work hours were directed to WP2 as it took us more time than we planned. (Also approved by the project officer).
On the dissemination and communication front, PowerPlug created a special section in the company web site for PowerCloud project, including detailed information on the project goals, benefits, features and components. PowerPlug continues to maintain and enhance the project web site which is publicly available.
During the 2nd period of the project, PowerPlug has engaged 2 customers and started a pilot for PowerCloud private cloud. Since both customers are high security firms (a government agency and a large bank), they did not agree to sign the pilot agreement and publish pilot results will with their name. They agree to publish the results without mention of the origin company and any identifying data. PowerPlug conducted the two pilots successfully and published the pilot results as part of the project deliverables.
Using feedbacks received from the pilot customers and a list of issues that were found by the internal QA team, a formal list of issues in PowerCloud version 1 was compiled and published as a project deliverable. This list was the basis to the work done on WP4 â€“ upgrade of PowerCloud to version 1.1 and fix of all the issues found in 1.0. The task was completed successfully along with the development of the PowerPlug Access Point hardware device.
PowerPlug Access Point enables PowerCloud to save power on all the PCs in the network but still retain the ability to wake up any PC at any given time. This ability is unique to PowerCloud and is part of a patent that was granted by the US patent office to PowerPlug Ltd.
Dissemination: PowerPlug used several channels in order to promote PowerCloud: a marketing research firm was used to i\"

Final results

PowerPlug has performed the project according to the detailed project plan that was submitted to the EC. PowerPlug developed a cost structure for the product and is actively marketing and promoting it to potential customers.